The country’s maternity services are dangerously fragile after this government’s mismanagement

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24 Jan 2013

Diane Abbott MP, Labour’s shadow public health minister, responds to the Department of Health’s announcement that 100 hospitals are to take part in £25 maternity unit makeover:

‘This announcement is welcome but the big picture is still extremely worrying. The country’s maternity services are dangerously fragile after this government’s mismanagement and I don’t think this, alone, will be enough to turn the current crisis around.

‘We seeing rising demands, massive shortages of midwives with and concerns about the ageing midwifery workforce. It is staggering that having directly promised an extra 3000 midwives before the election, what we now see from this government is chaos in the NHS caused by its expensive NHS reorganisation, thousands of clinical posts being axed, and the NHS budget being cut in real terms.’